Just Smell the Money!

Mmm, mmm! What IS that wonderful smell?

Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction.

The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.

In Albany, which boasts the state's highest percentage of charter school enrollments, a nonprofit called the Brighter Choice Foundation has employed the New Markets Tax Credit to arrange private financing for five of the city's nine charter schools.

But many of those same schools are now straining to pay escalating rents, which are going toward the debt service that Brighter Choice incurred during construction. 

[...]  

No wonder JPMorgan Chase announced this week it was creating a new $325 million pool to invest in charter schools and take advantage of the New Markets Tax Credit.

I'm just waiting for the day Haliburton starts building charter schools...

Seriously: the charter "movement" is based on very flimsy results. And yet we're getting ready to give untold sums of money to Wall Street to finance them. I seem to recall the financial sector having some problems recently...

Isn't anyone the least little bit pissed off by this? Anyone?